A distributed load balancing system includes multiple service nodes and multiple access nodes. A virtual load balancer and a client run on each access node, and at least one backend server runs on each service node. The client is configured to send a request for accessing a specific service. The virtual load balancer is configured to obtain a status of each target backend server of multiple target backend servers providing the service, and select a target backend server for the request according to a load balancing policy and the status of each target backend server. The selected target backend server is configured to process the request.
Currently, when obtaining the status of each target backend server of the multiple target backend servers providing the service, the virtual load balancer separately obtains an Internet Protocol (Internet Protocol, IP) address of each target backend server. By using an IP address of the virtual load balancer as a source IP address and using the IP address of each target backend server as a destination IP address, the virtual load balancer sends a detection message to each target backend server, records a status of a target backend server returning a response as normal, and records a status of a target backend server returning no response or returning a response upon overtime as abnormal.
The distributed load balancing system includes a large quantity of access nodes and service nodes, and the virtual load balancer on each access node needs to send a detection message to obtain a status of each target backend server. Consequently, a large quantity of detection messages exist in the distributed load balancing system. The large quantity of detection messages not only affect another service in the distributed load balancing system, but also increase signaling load on the access node.